Animals For People

What I read: For this blog post, I've started reading a new book. I'm really enjoying the graphic memoir Maus by Art Spiegelman. I've wanted to read this book for a long time because I had heard of it before and knew basically what it was about.

At the beginning, we see that instead of people, the characters are portrayed as animals.  For example, the Jews are shown as mice, the Germans are portrayed as cats, and the Poles are pigs.  The author Art and his family are mice in this book.  Art's father, Vladek, is a survivor of the Holocaust and the book is mostly the story that Vladek tells to Art about that period in his life.

Vladek's story begins before the start of World War II.  Vladek is a Polish Jew who lives in Sosnowiec in Poland.  Vladek tells his son Art how he met Art's mother, Anja, who is also Polish Jewish.  By the time Vladek tells this story to Art, Anja is already dead.

Vladek works all sorts of odd jobs, especially selling and trading goods.  Anja is from a much richer family than Vladek.  Still, Anja's family likes and accepts Vladek as a new member of their family.  For a while, Vladek and Anja are happy and doing well financially.  They marry and have a son called Richieu.  But things start to get hard.  After Anja has Richieu, she starts feels depressed and even suicidal.  Vladek tries to help her. 

At the same time, there are rumors about what's going on in Germany, especially with the German Jews living under Hitler. This is happening in the late 1930s.  In 1939, Hitler's army invades Poland and Vladek, who has already enlisted in Poland's military, gets called to the front to fight. Poland loses the battle quickly and Vladek is taken as a prisoner of war by the Germans.  There is one very intense moment during the battle when Vladek shoots and kills a cat (a German soldier).  While he is a prisoner of war, Vladek and the other Jews and treated much worse than the non-Jewish Polish POWs.

What I thought about:  When I started reading this book, I already understood the representation of animals. In the animal world cats chase mice.  This is just like the Germans in the book chasing the Jews.  Even though I haven't seen any Americans yet, I already know that the Americans will be represented as dogs because dogs chase cats.  Historically, we know that the Americans beat the Germans in two world wars, so it makes sense that they are shown as dogs. Also, we know that in Nazi Germany, Hitler talked about Jews as if they were rats. He even had anti-Jewish propaganda that portrayed Jews as rats. 

As I read, I realized that Vladek is a really interesting character to think about.  In the book, he tells his son Art about his story in a harsh way.  We also see Vladek being harsh with Art when Art is a little boy.  But when I found out a bit about Vladek's life, I felt like I understood why he's the way he is.  For example, in the picture below, Vladek is already an old man telling the story of his life to his son.  But we can see a glimpse of his left arm in the last frame. On his arm is a number tattoo from when he was in a camp.  This is a constant reminder of what Vladek went through and what he survived.  It's impossible for him to put those memories completely behind him.  His tattoo is a constant reminder of his past.

What I conclude: While there are two books in this series, it's the same story that continues from one to the other.  Therefore, I will be reading and blogging about both books as if they were one. It's all one story, but they were just published as two different books.

I'm really excited to read this book.  So far, it's met my expectations, which were very high.  For me, this book is hard yet interesting because I am Jewish.  Reading about the Holocaust can get me emotional sometimes but some books are worth it to read, and this is one of those.  The mixture of words and pictures make it look realistic despite the fact that the characters are animals instead of people.  I think I'm going to love this series.

Vladek as a mouse and Vladek as a man